Cultural prism: Very real artificial intelligence

Self-aware computers that turn on their human masters, such as Skynet in Terminator and HAL 9000 in 2001: A Space Odyssey, are a classic science fiction theme.With great strides being made in artificial intelligence, the gap between such far-fetched scenarios and reality is closing. Fast. The vision of artificial general intelligence (AGI), or strong/full AI, is not only to partially simulate human intellect, but match and surpass it. This seemingly implausible threshold, also known as Singularity, may be achieved in the not-very-distant future. This is the era of machine learning. Instead of programmers defining linear algorithms and conditional if-then statements, raw data is processed in multiple iterations of recursive fine-tuning. The more exposure to inputs, the more the system “learns,” just like living creatures do.A fascinating method of machine learning…